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July 31, 2015

Can You Choose Your Baby's Sex?

It seems to be a new trend out there to try and choose your baby's sex, but nothing seems to be full proof. You can increase your chances, but it seems, in the end, it is going to be pretty much 50/50.

My husband and I would like to have a girl and so we decided we would give it a try. We are young, healthy, and in no hurry to get pregnant. The methods don't seem all that complicated and hey, it never hurts to try!

The three methods I am going to discuss in this post are:

The Shettles Method

Diet

The Chinese Gender Chart

We intend to use the first two methods, the Chinese Gender Chart is just for fun and because I know a lot of people read it wrong, I want to explain how it works. Also, note that you can't really choose gender, you are choosing your baby's sex, however, it is not called The Chinese Sex Chart and to avoid confusion, I'm not going to change the name.The Shettles Method

"The Shettles method has reportedly been effective at least 75% of the time, with the rate slightly lower for girls than for boys." (source)

The Shettles Method appears to have more success and getting the sex right for boys, so if you want a boy, this might be the one to try.

To have a girl The Shettles Method recommends having sex in the missionary position with shallow penetration, 2-4 days before ovulation (this is because male sperm are fast swimmers, but not long survivors like females), no orgasm for the female (sorry ladies!). This is because male sperm don't do well in an acidic environment and an orgasm will lessen the acidity, giving the female sperm a better chance.

Now if you want to have a boy, you should have sex from behind (aka doggy style), this gets the sperm as close to the cervix as possible so the male sperm does not have to swim through the acidic opening. It also helps if the female orgasms because her orgasm mitigates the acidity. You'll also want to have sex as close to ovulation as possible since males are quick swimmers, but don't survive as long as females.

Diet

How does changing your diet affect what sex you might conceive?

"One theory is that it changes the mineral content of a women’s uterine environment (changing the consistency of the cervical mucus or some other environmental condition in the reproductive tract) which makes it more hospitable to one type of sperm or another. Similarly, other theories suggest that the “gender diet” can change the pH (acidity) in the woman’s body and therefore change the polarity of the egg. By ingesting the correct ratio of minerals, a woman can alter her uterine environment making it more conducive to attract either an x or y chromosome from the male’s sperm." (source)

To have a boy, you should eat potassium and sodium-rich foods, such as bananas, yams, potatoes, red meat, apples, salmon, cereal, mushrooms, tomatoes, etc and you should stay away from foods rich in calcium and magnesium.

The Chinese Gender Chart

When you look at the chart above, it seems pretty simple, right? You look for your age on the right and find the month you conceived on the top. For example: if you are 18 and you conceived in January, you would have a girl, right? Wrong.

This is because the Chinese Gender Chart is based on your lunar age. What is your lunar age? Well, it is your age from the day you were conceived and it's according the lunar calendar, which is different from our western one. For most, this would make you a year older than you actually are or in some cases, like my husband, two years older! You can calculate/find your lunar age here.

So in our example above, if using the lunar age, she would be 19, not 18, and so it would predicate a boy instead.

How accurate is the Chinese Gender Chart?

"The Chinese lunar calendar was right on target in predicting a baby's sex about 50% of the time. About the same rate of success you could expect if you merely flipped a coin." (source)

It's pretty much 50/50, which is the reason we aren't going to use it. There is no science to back it at all, so it is pretty much just superstition.

There are other methods out there and superstitions, like the pendulum swing, but in the end I don't think you can really choose your baby's sex, at least not at this point, maybe in the future, but it probably won't be conceived naturally (there are actually some expensive methods now using IVF that allow you to choose your baby's sex, but even they aren't 100% just yet.)

However, it's always fun to experiment, which is why we are going to try and if you are in no hurry and feel like giving some of these methods a shot, then go for it!

3 comments:

I wish I would have heard about the Shettles method sooner! I just found out I'm pregnant with my 3rd a couple of weeks ago. We already have 2 girls, so would really like a boy! Obviously not fool-proof, but anything can help, right? lol

I say it never hurts to try (unless you are struggling with infertility)! The important thing is to realize it's not fool proof and to be prepared for the opposite sex than the one you were hoping for! We had planned to follow these methods, but after some infertility issues, the only thing that mattered to us was having a baby, but we still ended up with a girl, which is what we had hoped for!

Thank you so much for these information on technique of baby gender calculator . I was looking for these for the past few months. I am looking for these information. So that I can use this method to get pregnant naturally.